Chapter XVI: Part 16

It is a curious fact that this paper, which has been so often quoted as evidence in favor of Schœffer’s invention of matrices, [p476] positively says that matrices had already been used by Fust and Gutenberg. Before Schœffer’s name is mentioned, it is said that “they” [Fust and Gutenberg] discovered a method of making matrices. Trithemius says that Schœffer’s contribution to the invention was “a more easy method of founding types, by which he gave the art its present perfection.” He does not explain this easy method. We do not know whether his claimed improvement was in the mould or matrix, in its construction or in its manipulation; but it was not origination or invention, it was improvement only. The passage which seems to say that the first types were cut by hand does not require much comment. Trithemius may have misunderstood, and incorrectly reported, what he heard, or Schœffer may have misrepresented the facts. It is evident that Trithemius is in error; for cut types, cut either as to body or as to face, never were, never could have been used. The most trustworthy evidences tell us that the earliest types were cast in a mould.[332]

If the word _formen_, which is found in the record of the trial of Strasburg, be construed as the same word must be construed in the colophon to the _Catholicon of 1460_, in the acknowledgment of Dr. Humery in 1468, and in the order of the King of France in 1458, then we have the most complete evidence that the matrices and the accompanying type-mould were used by Gutenberg long before he knew Schœffer.

It was not necessary that Trithemius should have told us that he derived this curious information from Peter Schœffer. In these perversions of truth we may see the vanity of the man who had already boasted that he was the first to enter the sanctuary of the art. The unreasonableness of his claim [p477] to the invention of matrices, or to the perfection of printing, may be inferred from the fact that, although he was a judge, a man of distinction, and a successful publisher for more than forty years, during the period when the value of printing was fully appreciated, he was never noticed in any way as a great benefactor. Neither the emperor nor elector gave him any distinction as the founder of a great art; no one put up a stone to his memory, honoring him as an inventor; no printer of that century regarded him as aught more than a thrifty publisher. His reputation has been created entirely by his own boasts and those of his family; and it is a most damaging circumstance that these boasts were not made until Gutenberg and Fust were dead, and that the statement written by Trithemius was not published until all the witnesses to the invention were dead, and there could be no contradiction.

There are many facts which show the falsity of Schœffer’s claim. Setting aside the evidences in favor of the probable priority of the types of the _Bible of 36 lines_, the record of the lawsuit between Gutenberg and Fust virtually tells us that the types of the _Bible of 42 lines_ had been made, perhaps in 1452, but not later than 1453. That these types were founded in matrices, were of neater cut, more exact as to body, and better founded than any afterward made by Schœffer, is apparent at a glance. They prove that the true method of type-making had already been found. If Schœffer invented the matrices from which these types were made, he should have perfected this invention in 1451. But Schœffer was a copyist at Paris in 1449, and it is not certain that he was with Gutenberg before 1453. Here we encounter an impossibility. It cannot be supposed that a young collegian, fresh from books, without experience in mechanics, could invent, off-hand, a complicated method of type-making, upon which Gutenberg had been working for many years.

There is still another version of this invention of matrices by Schœffer, the version of Jo. Frid. Faustus, which has been often paraded as conclusive testimony in Schœffer’s favor. [p478]

John Fust, of Mentz, was the first to perceive the losses suffered by scholars through the scarcity of books. He labored diligently to invent some new method of multiplying them, so that they could be furnished to readers at reduced and reasonable prices. High Heaven, kindly favoring his sincere prayers and his most laudable intention, revealed to this excellent man the most approved form and mainstay of his invention. In the beginning, he cut the letters of the alphabet for children, on a block of wood, in high relief. With much loss of time and labor, he waited for the invention of a more suitable ink; for writing ink blotted and made the printed letters unintelligible. He experimented with soot from a candle, with which he was able to print, but the impression would not adhere to the paper. At last he invented an ink which was black, adhesive and permanent. Then he began to print on a press and to publish little books for children, which everybody bought, for the price was trivial, and buyers praised the printer. Fust was stimulated to attempt larger work, and he thereupon printed the _Donatus_ in exactly the same manner. But the engraved pages of this book, cut out of the solid block, displayed many imperfect letters, and many copies were worthless. It then occurred to the inventor, at the right time, that he might print books with separate types, and that it was not at all necessary that the letters should always be cut on solid blocks. Whereupon he cut up the wood blocks, and saving all the types that had escaped injury, he made new combinations with them. This is the true origin of the composition of movable types. This new method of making types called for a great expenditure of time and labor; it delayed the work, hindered the development of the new art, and made many miserable difficulties for the inventor.

Fust had many workmen, who assisted him in making ink and types, and in other work. Among them was Peter Schœffer of Gernszheim, who, when he perceived the difficulties and delays of his master, was seized with an ardent desire to accomplish the success of the new art. Through the special inspiration of God, he discovered the secret by which types of the matrix, as they are called, could be cut, and types could be founded from them, which, for this purpose, could be composed in frequent combinations, and not be singly cut as they had been before. Schœffer secretly cut matrices of the alphabet, and showed types cast therefrom to his master, John Fust, who was so greatly pleased with them, and rejoiced so greatly, that he immediately promised to him his only daughter, and soon after he gave her to him in marriage. But even with this kind of type, great difficulty was experienced. The metal was soft and did not withstand pressure, until they invented an alloy which gave it proper strength. [p479] As they had happily succeeded in this undertaking, Fust and Schœffer bound their workmen by oath to conceal the process with the greatest secrecy; but they showed to friends, whenever it pleased them, the first experimental types of wood, which they tied up with a string and preserved. My uncle, Doctor John Fust, testified that he had seen, with the manuscripts which were bequeathed by the inventor, these experimental types of wood, and that he had held in his hands the first part of his edition of the _Donatus_.[333]

The unknown author further says that John Gutenberg was one of the friends to whom Fust and Schœffer showed the wood types; that Gutenberg, professing to admire their ingenuity, took a great interest in their enterprise, and lent Fust and Schœffer money, thereby entangling them in an agreement, from which they could not extricate themselves until Gutenberg had acquired a right to use the invention, by which use he wrongfully enjoys the honor of first inventor. Here we may stop. It would be a waste of time to expose, one by one, the falsehoods of a statement so flatly contradicted by many unimpeachable evidences. It is very clear that the writer had no new facts to tell us about the invention. He has told us not how it was made, but how he wished it had been made that it might redound to the honor of the Fusts.

What later writers have said about the value of Schœffer’s services need not be considered, for they also have produced no new facts: they have based their opinions entirely on the incorrect information of Faustus, Trithemius and Schœffer. We may pass, without further delay, to the examination of the claims made for other alleged inventors of printing.

[p480]

XXIV

Alleged Inventors of Printing.

Discovery of the Book of Four Stories, with Imprint of Albert Pfister . . . Its Types the same as those of the Bible of 36 lines . . . Pfister regarded as an Inventor of Printing . . . Description of Book of Four Stories . . . Its Colophon . . . Book of Fables . . . Colophon and Fac-simile . . . Other Books by Pfister . . . Pfister not a Type-founder . . . Probably an Engraver on Wood . . . Could not have Printed the Bible of 36 lines . . . Pfister probably got his Knowledge of Printing from Gutenberg . . . Paul of Prague’s Notice of Printing at Bamberg . . . Sebastian Pfister . . . Pamphilo Castaldi . . . Absurdity of the Legend . . . John Mentel and his Epitaph . . . Gebwiler’s Statement . . . Fac-simile of the Arms of the Typothetæ . . . Specklin’s Statement . . . Plain Falsifications of History . . . Known Facts about Mentel and his partner Henry Eggestein.

* * * * *

It is, perhaps, possible to show of all inventions that somewhere somebody must have been very near to it. To assert of any invention whatever, that it could or should have been invented long ago, is nothing but chicane: we are to prove, incontrovertibly, that it was really invented, or else be silent.

_Lessing._

* * * * *

Schelhorn’s opinion that the _Bible of 36 lines_ was the Bible described by Zell—the book printed by Gutenberg in 1450—did not meet with the approval of those who had copies of the _Bible of 42 lines_. Men who had paid very large prices for the copies of an edition supposed to be the first, were loth to have it degraded to the inferior place of a second edition. The testimony of Zell was unceremoniously set aside; the written date of 1460 in one copy of the _Bible of 36 lines_ was regarded as indicating the date of printing, and the book was declared the work of Gutenberg between 1455 and 1460. Another hypothesis was soon presented. In 1792, Steiner, a clergyman at Augsburg, announced the discovery of the _Book of Four Stories_ with the imprint of Albert [p481] Pfister, Bamberg, 1462. Soon after, Camus read before the National Institute at Paris, a critical description of the book, in which he proved the identity of its types with those of the _Bible of 36 lines_. Thereupon, incautious readers rushed to the hasty inference that, as Pfister had made use of the types of the _Bible of 36 lines_, the Bible must have been printed by Pfister. Critics of authority did not hesitate to say that Albert Pfister, a printer unknown for three centuries, and of whom there is no tradition, might have been an inventor of printing, the rival, and perhaps the predecessor and teacher, of John Gutenberg. As we know Pfister only through his books, it will be proper to examine their workmanship before this hypothesis can be considered. They are not numerous: sixteen books and pamphlets have been attributed to him, but his claim to eight has been disproved.[334]

The _Book of Four Stories_, a thin folio of 60 leaves—a version made for childish readers of the biblical descriptions of Joseph, Daniel, Esther and Judith—may be offered as the most characteristic specimen of Pfister’s style. The types of this book are those of the _Bible of 36 lines_, but they are much worn. If they were not the identical characters, they were cast in the mould and matrices that had been used for the types of the _Bible_, for the types of both books agree in face and in body. The _Book of Four Stories_ has fifty-five engravings on wood, six of which are repeated, each occupying the space of about eleven lines, or 2-3/4 inches, of the text. The engravings are coarse; they have no artistic merit, and are in every way inferior to those of the _Bible of the Poor_ or the _Speculum Salutis_; they abound in puerile absurdities, and seem to be the work of a maker of cards or images. The text of the book is in German rhyme, but the lines follow each other, without break, as in a text of prose. A capital [p482] letter indicates the beginning of each line of poetry, and a lozenge-shaped period denotes its ending. The presswork is decidedly inferior: the deeply indented paper shows that the printer could not regulate the pressure on the types; the muddiness of the letters comes from the use of a thin ink, and the faulty register from a shackly press. The colophon or subscription of this book, a translation of which is submitted, specifies the date, the place of printing and the printer:

Every man, in his heart, desires to be learned and well read. Without books and without teacher, this cannot be. If it were otherwise, all of us would know Latin. These reflections have engaged me for a long time. To good purpose have I sought out and gathered the four stories of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and also of Esther. God granted protection to these four personages, as He always does to the good. This little book, which is intended to teach us how to amend our lives, was completed in Bamberg, in which city Albert Pfister printed it, in the year which is numbered one thousand four hundred and sixty-two,—which is the truth,—soon after the day of Saint Walpurgis, who is able to obtain for us grace abundant, peace, and everlasting life. May God give them to all of us. Amen.

The _Book of Fables_, a folio of 88 leaves, printed with the types of the _Bible of 36 lines_, is another work which fairly exhibits the style of Pfister. It contains eighty-five fables, each illustrated with a coarse engraving on wood, in which monkeys represent men. The text is in rhyme, but the lines follow each other without break. The colophon says:

At Bamberg this little book was finished, after the Nativity of Jesus Christ, as one counts, one thousand four hundred years and sixty and one,—such is the truth,—on the day of Saint Valentine. God save us from His sufferings.

[From Heineken.]]

Another book attributed to Pfister is known as _Belial_, or the _Consolation of the Sinner_. It is a folio of 95 leaves, which exhibits on the last leaf the words _Albrecht Pfister su Bamberg_. Pfister also printed two editions of the _Bible of the Poor_, one in Latin and one in German, each containing eighteen engravings. His treatment of the old block-book is that of a mechanic and not of an artist: the designing, [p483] engraving and printing are of the lowest order. He also printed the _Complaint against Death_, and the _Judgment of Man after Death_. All were printed with the types of the _Bible of 36 lines_, and they were, apparently, his only types. [p484]

That Pfister was not a type-founder seems clearly enough established through the fact that he did all his typographic work with only one size and face of type. In all his books, the letters of the Latin alphabet appear old and worn, but the _w_, _k_, and _z_, characters of the German alphabet, are new and sharp. The types had evidently been used before for books in Latin, but not by Pfister, for the _Bible of the Poor_ seems to have been the only book he printed in that language.

The _Book of Fables_ bearing the date of 1461 seems the earliest of Pfister’s books, but it was published without any explanation stating that it was made by a new art. It may therefore be presumed that he began to print with types before 1461. The profusion of wood-cuts in his books is an indication that he was an engraver on wood—probably a maker of playing cards, images, and block-books, who had profited by an early opportunity to perceive the advantages of types. As a seller and maker of chap-books, he would prefer the types because they explained his pictures more cheaply than the slower process of engraving letter by letter; but his persistent use of types which other printers would have condemned as worn out, shows that he did not make and could not renew them. It is not probable that a man who seems to have rated his wretched wood-cuts as the most meritorious feature of his books could have invented types. It is possible, however, that an image printer of low aims and slender ability could have perceived the economical advantages of types, and may have purchased a discarded font for the sole purpose of printing explanations to his engravings. And this seems the only conjecture that will explain Pfister’s ownership of the types of the _Bible of 36 lines_.

The conjecture that Pfister printed the _Bible of 36 lines_ will not bear a critical examination. It is not enough to show that our first positive knowledge of the types and the copies of this book begins with Pfister and Bamberg. It still remains to be proved that Pfister made the types and printed the copies. The proof is wanting and the probabilities are [p485] strongly adverse. The _Bible of 36 lines_ is unlike any book of Pfister’s in size, character, and workmanship. It is not possible that the man who began his career as a printer with an admirable edition of the Latin Bible in three volumes folio, could have ended it with the publication of shabby little books in German, intended for children. A declension like this is without a parallel in typographical history.

It has been supposed that Pfister got his types and his imperfect knowledge of typography from Gutenberg after the dissolution of the partnership between Fust and Gutenberg, but Pfister could have gotten them before. There is a blank in Gutenberg’s history between the years 1442 and 1448, about which we know nothing. That he was then at work on his problem; that he must have communicated more or less of his secrets to the many unknown workmen and associates who succeeded Dritzehen, Saspach, Heilmann and Dünne; that he may have been induced to try his fortunes at Bamberg before he went to Mentz; that Albert Pfister may have been one of his workmen who followed him to Mentz and acquired some skill in the art,—these are conjectures that deserve consideration. But they are conjectures only: we have no exact knowledge concerning the introduction of typography in Bamberg. It is plain, however, that the appearance at Bamberg, in 1461,—a year before the sack of Mentz, the date usually fixed on as that of the dispersion of the printers, and the general divulgement of the secret,—of a book printed in the worn types of the _Bible of 36 lines_, and the subsequent discovery near this city of many copies of this book, which could not have been printed by Pfister, are indications that Gutenberg must have had business relations with Bamberg which are of importance in the history of printing.

The only documentary evidence which seems to favor the hypothesis that Pfister might have printed the _Bible of 36 lines_ is the following curious notice of early printing, which was written about 1463, by Paul of Prague, for a contemplated but unfinished encyclopedia of arts and sciences: [p486]

The _libripagus_[335] is an artisan who skillfully engraves on plates of copper, iron, hard wood, or other substances, images, writing, or anything he fancies, and afterward quickly prints them on paper, or on a wall, or on a smooth board. He cuts whatever he pleases, and is a man who can apply his art to pictures. When I was at Bamberg, a man engraved the whole Bible upon plates, and in four weeks skillfully preserved this engraving of the whole Bible on thin parchment.

Pfister’s name is not mentioned, but he was, probably, the _libripagus_ here noticed. The story is not credible. The whole _Bible_ was not printed in four weeks, neither at Bamberg nor elsewhere; nor was it ever engraved upon plates. The only book of Pfister’s to which this statement could be applied, is his edition of the _Bible of the Poor_.

We do not know when Pfister died; his last dated work is of the year 1462. Sebastian Pfister, who is supposed to be Albert’s son, was at the head of a printing office at Bamberg in the year 1470, and then printed a little book which seems to have been his first and last venture in printing.

Pamphilo Castaldi of Feltre, Italy, to whom a statue was erected in 1868, has also received the undeserved honor of an inventor of printing. This commemoration of the man by the people of a great nation seems to require in this book at least a statement of the legend on which his claims are based. This is the legend, abridged from a long panegyric on Castaldi’s services by one of his countrymen:

Pamphilo Castaldi was born in Feltre, of noble parents, at the end of the fourteenth century. He was highly educated and intelligent. Although a poet and a lawyer of good reputation, his love for literature induced him to open a school for polite learning, which soon became famous, and attracted students from foreign countries. None of his pupils acquired greater fame than John Fust, who is called by the historians of Feltre, Fausto Comesburgo. This Faust resided with [p487] Castaldi in Feltre as early as 1454. In the year 1442, Castaldi had seen a proof of Gutenberg’s attempts at the invention of typography. Gutenberg at that time (1442) was supported by the money of Faust and the skill of Schœffer, his partners. After ten years of experiment, Gutenberg had done nothing more than print from blocks of wood and with metallic characters. He had not yet invented movable types, for the _Bible of 1456_ should be classified with the block-books.

Castaldi, more ingenious or more fortunate, had already discovered movable types before the arrival of Faust in Feltre. It is well known that, a century before the publication of the _Mentz Psalter of 1457_, initial letters and capital letters formed of glass were manufactured at Murano, and used in Italy. These glass letters were, probably, the invention of Pietro de Natali, bishop of Equilo. Castaldi had noticed that these letters were of advantage to the scribes, who printed them in their manuscript books. He at once saw that it would be possible to print entire books, instead of occasional letters, with movable types. The facility with which this discovery had been made caused him to undervalue its importance. He gave the idea to Faust, who, returning to his partners in 1456, or a little before, enabled them to appropriate the invention of Castaldi. They greedily adopted this invention, and, in 1457, they produced the _Psalter_, the first book printed with movable characters of wood.[336]

The only portion of this absurd story which has any claim to respect is that about the early use in Italy by copyists of engraved or moulded initial letters. That they were, or could have been, made by the glass-blowers of Murano, and that Castaldi may have amused himself with experiments in stamping consecutive letters or lines, is possible. All else is pure fiction. It does not appear that Castaldi printed anything of value: we have no relics of his experiments in the form of a book, or even of a leaf, a line, or a letter. Nor did his dreams or teachings about the possible value of types ever incite any of his Italian pupils to make and use types.

To those who think that the merit of the invention of printing is in the conception of the idea of movable types, this legend about Castaldi is instructive. It reveals to us a man who is represented as having a very clear idea of the [p488] importance of types, who did nothing with his great discovery. His discovery, if it can be so called, was useless. He cannot be rated as an inventor of printing, for he printed nothing.

John Mentel, of Strasburg, who died in December, 1478, and was buried in the great cathedral of that city, has there a tablet to his memory, which contains the following inscription:

Here I rest: I, John Mentel, who, by the grace of God, was the first to invent, in Strasburg, the characters of typography, and to develop this art of printing, which should be perpetuated to the end of the world, to such a degree of perfection that a man can now write as much in a day as another could have done in a year. It is but just that thanks should be rendered to God, and without vanity, to me myself; but as this homage could not otherwise be rendered in a proper manner, God has ordained, as the reward for my invention, that the stones of this cathedral should serve for my mausoleum.[337]

The claim that Mentel was the inventor of typography was first made in 1520 by John Schott,[338] son of Martin Schott, who had married Mentel’s daughter and inherited his business. [p489] In the year 1521, Jerome Gebwiler, misled by the assertions of Schott, undertook to controvert the pretensions of Fust and Schœffer as the first printers. He writes that printing was practised in Strasburg by John Mentel, who had obtained the new art of chalcography, or of making books with tin pens (types) about the year 1447; that Mentel, and Eggestein, his partner, made an agreement that they should keep secret the new art; that John Schott, whom he praises, showed him a manuscript book, without date, written by Mentel, in which were drawings of typographic instruments, and observations on the manufacture of printing ink. It was by similar methods that John Schott induced James Spiegel to declare, in a book printed in 1531, that John Mentel invented printing in Strasburg in the year 1444.[339] John Schott is also the authority for the following version of the invention which was found in an old manuscript chronicle attributed to Daniel Specklin.

[From Hansard.]]

In the year 1440, the admirable art of printing was discovered in Strasburg by John Mentel. His son-in-law, Peter Schoiffer, and Martin Flach at once made use of the discovery; but a servant of Mentel, called John Gensfleisch, after stealing the secret, fled to Mentz, where he soon established the new art, through the help of Gutenberg, a very rich man. Mentel was so affected with grief by this perfidy that it caused his death. In honor of the art, he was buried in the monastery or cathedral church, and a representation of his press was cut on his tombstone. God swiftly punished the servant Gensfleisch, by striking him with blindness for the remnant of his life. I have seen the first press (of Mentel) and the types cut on wood, which were of syllables and words. They were pierced through the sides, that they could be conjoined by a wire and kept in line. It is to be regretted that these types, the first of the kind, should have been lost.[340] [p490]

These impudent falsifications of history would have been soon forgotten if they had not been renewed in the seventeenth century, by one James Mentel, a physician of Paris, the supposed descendant of John Mentel, who published two little books on the history of printing, in which he enlarged and distorted the versions of Gebwiler, Spiegel and Specklin. To support his claim, he did not scruple to alter the text and pervert the meaning of the authors from whom he pretended to quote.[341] It was a useless work, for no impartial critic can accept the statements of Mentel or of his predecessors. For these statements, like those in behalf of Coster, Castaldi and Schœffer, were made, for the first time, long after the invention had been perfected, by men who had the desire and the temptation to misrepresent the facts. All of them are tainted with the same calumny—the accusation that Gutenberg stole his knowledge of the invention—and all of them are contradicted by public records of undoubted authority.

Neither Mentel’s books nor the records of Strasburg give any warrant to the hypothesis that Mentel was an inventor of printing. His name appears for the first time on the tax list of the city of Strasburg, in the year 1447. He is called a _goltschriber_, and is enrolled with the goldsmiths. In another record of the city, for the same year, his name appears in a list of artists and painters, but he is not described as a printer. The earliest notice of him as a printer was made by Philip de Lignamine of Rome, who said, in 1474, that John Mentel of Strasburg, _since 1458_, had there a printing office, in which he printed three hundred sheets a day, “after the manner of Fust and Gutenberg.” By this statement we may suppose that Mentel practised printing soon after the dissolution of the partnership between Fust and Gutenberg. It was, no doubt, from Mentz that he got a knowledge of typography, for it cannot be shown that he was taught the art by any of Gutenberg’s early associates in Strasburg, nor is there any reason to believe that he was an independent inventor. We [p491] have no evidence that he experimented with types, or that he printed anything in Strasburg between 1439 and 1457. It is not even established that Mentel was the first practical printer in Strasburg, for there is evidence that he began to print there in partnership with one Henry Eggestein, who was a man of superior ability and of greater distinction, a master of arts and philosophy.[342]

Mentel did not affix his name to any of his books before 1473, but he had then printed many large theological works.[343] Schœpflin says that he soon made himself rich by his industry and his sagacity in the selection of salable books. He was a shrewd publisher, the first who issued a descriptive catalogue, and employed agents for the sale of his works.

[p492]

XXV

The Spread of Printing.

First Printers of Germany . . . Mentel at Strasburg . . . Zell at Cologne . . . Keffer and Koburger at Nuremberg . . . Fac-simile of a part of Koburger’s Map . . . Zainer at Augsburg . . . Fac-simile of Zainer’s Birth of Eve . . . John of Westphalia and Martens at Louvain . . . Mansion at Bruges . . . Gerard Leeu at Antwerp . . . First Printers of Italy . . . Sweinheym and Pannartz at Rome . . . De Spira at Venice . . . Jenson’s Types . . . Venice famous for Printing . . . Cennini at Florence . . . The Ripoli Press . . . Zarot at Milan . . . Appearance of Publishers . . . First Printers of France . . . Gering, Crantz and Friburger at Paris . . . The Printers of Elegant Books . . . First Printers in Spain and Portugal . . . In England . . . Caxton at Westminster . . . Printing did not find a general Welcome . . . Made Popular by the Cheapness of Books . . . Injudicious Selection of Books for Publication . . . Demand for Books in the Vernacular . . . First Check on the Liberty of the Press.

* * * * *

About this time, the crafte of Enpryntyng was fyrste founde in magounce in Almayne, which crafte is multiplyed through the world in many places, and bookes ben had grete chepe and in grete nombre by cause of the same crafte.

_Caxton, 1482._

* * * * *

IN CENTRAL AND NORTHERN EUROPE.

When two rival printing offices had been established at Mentz it was no longer possible to keep secret the processes. Every printer who handled the types and every goldsmith who helped to make the tools must have felt a weakening of the obligation of secrecy. The sack of Mentz was a greater misfortune, for it dissolved all obligations and sent the printers to other cities to found new offices. Not one of these printers has told us when and how he began to print on his own account. All we know about the introduction of printing in many of the large cities has been gathered from the dates of books and the chance allusions of early chroniclers. It is from these imperfect evidences [p493] that the following tables of the spread of printing have been made up. They are based on the chronological arrangement of Santander’s _Dictionary_, but the names and dates have been collated with those of Cotton’s _Typographical Gazetteer_, and other works of authority, and some alterations have been made.

Place. Printer. Date.

Mentz John Gutenberg 1450 Bamberg Albert Pfister — Strasburg Mentel and Eggestein 1458 Cologne Ulric Zell 1462 Augsburg Gunther Zainer 1468 Nuremberg Henry Keffer 1469 Munster in Argau Helyas Helye 1470 Spire Peter Drach 1471 Ulm John Zainer 1473 Buda (Hungary) Andrew Hess 1473 Mersburg Lucas Brandis 1473 Laugingen 1473 Esslingen Conrad Fyner 1473 Marienthal Bros. of Life-in-Com 1474 Lubec Lucas Brandis 1475 Burgdorf — 1475 Blaubeuren Conrad Mancz 1475 Pilsen — 1475 Rostock Bros. of Life-in-Com. 1476 Geneva Ad. Steynschauer 1478 Prague — 1478 Eichstadt M. and G. Reyser 1478 Wurtzburg Dold, Ryser, _et al._ 1479 Leipsic Marcus Brand 1481 Aurach Conrad Fyner 1481 Erfurt Wider de Hornbach 1482 Memmingen Albert de Duderstadt. 1482 Passau Stahl, Mayer, _et al._ 1482 Reutlingen John Ottmar 1482 Vienna John Winterburg 1482 Magdeburg Rauenstein _et al._ 1483 Stockholm John Snell 1483 Winterberg John Alacraw 1484 Heidelberg Fred. Misch 1485 Ratisbon John Sensenschmidt 1485 Brinn Stahl & Preinlein 1486 Munster John Limburg 1486 Sleswick Stephen Arndes 1486 Frisia — 1488 Kuttenberg Von Tischniowa 1489 Ingolstadt John Kachelofen 1490 Hamburg J. and T. Borchard 1491 Wadstein — 1491 Czernigov Tzernoevic 1492 Zinna — 1492 Fribourg Kilianus Piscator 1493 Luneburg John Luce 1493 Copenhagen Gothof. de Ghemen 1493 Oppenheim — 1494 Freisingen John Schæffler 1495 Offenburg — 1496 Tubingen John Ottmar 1498 Cracow John Haller 1500 Munich John Schobser 1500 Olmutz De Baumgarten 1500 Pfortzheim Thomas Anselmus 1500

This is but a brief list for the vast and populous country north of Italy and east of France and the Netherlands.[344] Not less remarkable is the fact that some cities now deservedly famous for their printing were among the last to acquire a knowledge of the art, and those that gave it feeble support.

The master printers at Mentz before 1500, not previously named, were: Erhardus Reuwich, whose first book was dated 1486; Frederic Misch, who began after 1490; Jacob Meydenbach (a witness at the trial of 1455), between 1491 and 1496; and Peter Friedburg, between 1494 and 1497. There may [p494] have been others, whose names are lost, but the printers are few; they cannot be compared, either in number or in influence, with those of many smaller cities during the same period. Long before Schœffer died,[345] Mentz had ceased to be a great school and centre of printing.

STRASBURG. The statement of Lignamine, that Mentel printed at Strasburg after 1458, has been corroborated by the recent discovery in the Freiburg library of a Latin _Bible_ in two volumes folio, which is known to have been printed by Mentel, and which contains the subscriptions of the illuminator and the written dates, in one volume of 1460, in the other of 1461.[346] As this book should have been in press at least two years, it may be regarded as evidence that printing was practised here as early as in Bamberg. Strasburg gave greater encouragement to printers than Mentz, for sixteen master printers were working there before 1500.

COLOGNE. The first printer at Cologne was Ulric Zell. He was an industrious printer for more than forty years, but he never printed a book in German, nor did he adopt any of the improvements of the printers of Italy. He adhered rigidly to the severe style of his master, Schœffer, printing all his books from three sizes of a rude face of Round Gothic types. He was not a skillful nor even a correct printer, but he was a shrewd publisher, and accumulated a large property. Madden supposes that he went to Cologne in 1462, and [p495] was engaged by the Brotherhood of the Life-in-Common at Weidenbach, near that city, to assist them with his new art of printing in their pious task of making books.[347] His name appears for the first time in a book dated 1466, which date may be accepted as indicative of the time when he left the monastery and began to print on his own account in the city.

At the close of the fifteenth century, twenty-two printing offices had been established at Cologne. Among them was that of Arnold Ter Hoorne, who, despite his occasional bad presswork, deserves special notice as one of the first printers who made use of Arabic figures.

[Photographed from Mr. Bruce’s copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle.]]

NUREMBERG. Henry Keffer, who appeared as a witness for Gutenberg in the suit at law in 1455, is supposed to have established himself as a printer at Nuremberg about 1469. His name appears, for the first time, in the imprint of a book dated 1473, from which it seems that he was hired by John Sensenschmidt, a wealthy man of that city,[348] who aspired to be a publisher. In 1473, Anthony Koburger began to print at Nuremberg. In a few years he acquired great reputation as printer and publisher: he had twenty-four presses at Nuremberg and offices at Basle and at Lyons. Lichtenberger says that he printed twelve editions of the _Bible_ in Latin and one in German. That he merited his honors is implied by the testimony of Jodocus Badius, his rival at Paris, who frankly said he was an honest merchant and the prince of printers. The success of Koburger did not materially interfere with the [p496] prosperity of his rivals, for there were seventeen master type-printers and many block-printers at Nuremberg before 1500. Koburger’s most curious book is the _Nuremberg Chronicle_ of 1493, a large and thick folio, edited or compiled by Hartmann Schedel, as a summary of the history, geography and wonders of the world. It contains more than two thousand [p497] impressions[349] of wood-cuts, “made by Wolgemuth and Pleydenwurff, mathematical men, and cunning as designers.”

[From Heineken.]]

AUGSBURG. The practice of typography was brought to Augsburg in 1468 by Gunther Zainer of Reutlingen, who is supposed to have been taught at Strasburg. He was the first printer in Germany who printed a book in Roman characters. [p498] He and his rivals, Bamler, Schüssler and Sorg,[350] illustrated their books so freely with wood-cuts as to provoke the remonstrance of the fraternity of block-printers of Augsburg.[351] This opposition may have caused Zainer’s retirement from business in 1475, but it did not check the business of the others.[352] There were twenty master printers at Augsburg before 1500.

IN THE NETHERLANDS.

UTRECHT. It is probable that the unknown printer of the four notable editions of the _Speculum_ was at Utrecht before the arrival of Ketelaer and De Leempt in 1473.[353]

LOUVAIN. John of Westphalia came to Louvain in 1472, with some matrices of Round Gothic and Roman types which he had acquired in Venice, and began to fit up a printing office. In 1473, he published his first book. During the twenty-two years he was in business, he printed 120 works. Many were editions of the classics, and all were selected with reference to the requirements of the University, from which he received the honorary title of Master of Printing. John Veldener, who began to print at Louvain in 1473, received a similar title. He boasted that he was expert in all branches of the graphic arts, but his skill was that of a mechanic. As [p499] a publisher, he could not compete with John of Westphalia.[354] Thierry Martens, of Alost, was employed by John of Westphalia, probably as editor, soon after he arrived at Louvain. After receiving suitable instruction, Martens was allowed to print some little books at Alost in 1473. He began to print at Alost in his own name in 1487. Necessity or the love of change compelled him to move his printing office many times between Louvain and Antwerp. In 1529, he forsook printing and retired to Alost, where he died in 1534, at the age of eighty-eight years. In his business life of almost sixty years he printed, beside many other works, about 150 books in Greek, Hebrew and Latin. He had a critical knowledge of six languages, and his ability as an editor was acknowledged by many scholars who were his friends and correspondents. Erasmus wrote his epitaph, and the town of Alost has put up a statue to commemorate his worth.

BRUGES. The name of Colard Mansion, a calligrapher of high merit and afterward the first typographer at Bruges, is found in the records of a corporation of book-makers, between the years 1454 and 1473. As his name does not re-appear before 1482,[355] it is supposed that he abandoned the guild and learned printing. In 1476, he printed a little book in a new face of type in the French style. He was a skillful but not a prosperous printer, for he was obliged to eke out his scant income as a printer by occasional jobs of illumination. Soon after 1484, he left Bruges. It is not known where he went or when he died. John Brito, who succeeded Mansion, was for many years the only typographic printer at Bruges. This neglect of printing in a city renowned for the elegance of its manuscripts and the skill of its calligraphers shows that the professional book-makers regarded printing as an inartistic and mechanical method of making books. [p500]

GOUDA and ANTWERP. Gerard Leeu, the most industrious[356] printer of his time, began to print at Gouda in 1477, but he went to Antwerp in 1484, where he continued to print until his death in 1493. Imitating Verard of Paris, he gave his later years to the translation and printing of romances and popular books. In 1493, he began to print Caxton’s _Chronicle of England_, in English and obviously for sale in England, but he died before the work was finished.[357]

IN ITALY.

This is the order in which printing was established in Italy:

Place. Printer. Date. Subiaco Sweinheym & Pannartz 1465 Rome Sweinheym & Pannartz 1467 Venice John de Spira 1469 Milan Anthony Zarot 1470 Foligno John Nummeister 1470 Trevi John Reynard 1470 Verona John of Verona 1470 Treviso Gerard de Lisa 1471 Bologna Balthazar Azzoguidi 1471 Ferrara Andrew Belfort 1471 Naples Sixtus Riessinger 1471 Pavia Antonio de Carcano 1471 Florence Bernard Cennini 1471 Fivizano Jacobus and others 1472 Padua Balt. de Valdezochio 1472 Mantua Pietro Adam de Michael 1472 Mondovi Antonio Mathiae, _et al._ 1472 Jesi Frederic Veronensis 1472 Cremona Paravisinus, _et al._ 1472 Parma Andrew Portiglia 1473 Brescia Thomas Ferrandus 1473 Messina Henry Alding 1473 Vicenza John de Reno 1473 Como De Orcho, _et al._ 1474 Turin Fabri and John de Petro 1474 Genoa Matthew Moravus, _et al._ 1474 Modena John Vurster 1475 Trent Hermann Schindeleyp 1476 Palermo Andrew de Wormatia 1477 Ascoli William de Linis 1477 Lucca Bart. de Civitali 1477 Casal William de Canepa 1481

Cotton, in his _Typographical Gazetteer_, specifies thirty-seven other places in Italy in which printing was done before 1500. [p501]

SUBIACO and ROME. Conrad Sweinheym and Arnold Pannartz, two printers from Germany, set up a press in the monastery of Subiaco, near Rome, and there produced in 1465 the books first printed from types in Italy. To please the tastes of their Roman readers they made a new font of Roman types. It was not a successful effort, for the traces of Gothic mannerisms are noticeable in almost every letter. Not meeting with the encouragement they desired, the two printers removed to Rome in 1467. They began to print on a grand scale, making new fonts of Roman, Greek and Round Gothic types, enlisting the services of Bishop John Andrew as reader and corrector, and undertaking the publication of many large classical works. They did not prosper. In the year 1472, they petitioned the pope for relief, setting forth that they had printed 11,475 copies of twenty-eight works, a very large portion of which had not been sold, and that they were in great distress. In 1473, Sweinheym withdrew from the partnership, and began to engrave on copper maps for an edition of _Ptolemy’s Geography_. He died before the book was published, in 1478. Pannartz died in 1476.

Ulrich Hahn, a printer of Bavaria, went to Rome in 1465, and began to print there in 1467. His first book was in Round Gothic types, but his Italian readers induced him to make for his second book a rude form of Roman types. He employed Campanus, an eminent scholar, as reader and corrector, and associated himself with Simon Nicholas de Lucca, who acted as editor and publisher of his books. At this time there were in Rome many printing offices, and the number increased, notwithstanding the complaints of Sweinheym and Pannartz, and also of Philip de Lignamine, that more books were printed than could be sold. Before the year 1500, there were or had been thirty-seven master printers at Rome.

VENICE. John de Spira, so called from Spire, the city in which he was born, was the first typographer at Venice. He began in 1469, by the publication of the _Letters of Cicero_ in types of Roman form. Soon after, he published an edition in [p502] folio of the _National History of Pliny_, which is regarded as one of the finest specimens of the printing of the fifteenth century. Proud of his fine work, but fearing competition, De Spira solicited and obtained from the senate, September 18th, 1469, exclusive rights as a printer in Venice for five years. The privileges seem to have been forfeited by his death in 1470; but his printing office was managed with ability by his brother Vindelin, who succeeded to the business.

Nicholas Jenson, the “man skilled in engraving,” who had been sent to Mentz in 1458, and who, according to Madden, had thoroughly qualified himself in the monastery of Weidenbach, seems to have been the first of several printers who hastened to Venice to profit by the forfeiture of De Spira’s privilege. In 1471, he published his first book,[358] the _Decor Puellarum_, in neat light-faced Roman types on Great-primer body. His experience at the mint of Tours as an engraver gave him a decided advantage over all his rivals. Roman types had been made before by Sweinheym, De Spira and Hahn, but never before had punches been so scientifically engraved, nor types so truly aligned. It is not surprising that the efforts of his predecessors should pass for naught, and that Jenson has ever since been regarded as the introducer of Roman types. But Jenson discovered, as Hahn and De Spira had done, that, to secure buyers in Germany, it was necessary to print books in Gothic characters. With this object in view, he cut several fonts of Round Gothic, one on Bourgeois and one on Brevier body, the smallest sizes of types made in the fifteenth century.

As a printer, Jenson is entitled to high praise. None of his competitors showed so much taste and skill in the details of book-making. It is noticeable in every feature—in the tint and texture of his paper, in the glossy blackness of his ink, in the clearness and solidity of his impressions, in the [p503] uniformity of register and of color on every page. Jenson’s merits were recognized by Pope Sixtus IV, who, in addition to other marks of favor, bestowed upon him the title of count palatine. He died in 1481. His printing office passed into the hands of an association of which Andrew Torresani of Asola was the manager. In time, Aldus Manutius, a partner in this association, married a daughter of Torresani, and got control of the office, the reputation of which he increased by his scholarship, by his numerous editions of the classics, and by his introduction of Italic types, but not by superior skill as a typographer. As a type-founder, printer and ink-maker, Jenson had no rival and left no proper successor.

At the close of the fifteenth century, Venice took the lead of all cities, not only in the number of its printing offices, but in the beauty of its types and printing. Printers in other countries knew that they would secure for their types the highest commendation by announcing them as the true Venetian characters. Santander specifies 201 master printers who had been in business at Venice before 1500. Bernard estimates the number of books then and there printed at two million volumes.

FLORENCE. Bernard Cennini, an eminent goldsmith of Florence, began to print with types at that city in the year 1471. He said that he and his sons Peter and Dominic made the tools and types and did all the work without instruction, but the exact manner in which Cennini describes the cutting of punches and the founding of types makes this statement doubtful. Cennini never earned any reputation as a typographer, for it does not appear that he printed any book after 1471. Santander names twenty-two master printers at Florence before 1500. The most noticeable of the number is Dominic de Pistoia, an ecclesiastic who founded a printing office in 1474, which is known in history as the Ripoli Press. Dominic was the abbot of a monastery, but he proved an active and intelligent publisher. He deserves notice chiefly for his care in keeping his accounts, which give us our most [p504] trustworthy information concerning the materials and usages of the early printers.[359]

MILAN. Anthony Zarot began to print at Milan in 1470 or 1471, having been hired by Philip de Lavagna, who seems to have been a capitalist and a publisher. In 1472, Zarot persuaded four citizens of Milan to unite with him in a new association for the printing and publishing of books. The articles of agreement are curious, and deserve preservation.[360] The association seems to have been remarkably prosperous, for in 1472 it had seven presses at work. In 1473, the [p505] publisher Philip de Lavagna and his new partner Montanus made an agreement with Christopher Valdarfer, another printer at Milan, for the exclusive use of two presses.[361]

There was no part of Europe in which so great an enthusiasm was shown for printing as in Italy.[362] The only open opposition which the new art encountered was made in 1472, by the copyists of Genoa, who complained that the typographers were greedy, and that they deprived the copyists of their livelihood by undertaking to print little books.

IN FRANCE.

Place. Printer. Date. Paris Ulrich Gering, _et al_ 1469 Lyons Buyer and Le Roy 1476 Angers De Turre and Morelli 1477 Chablis Pierre le Rouge 1478 Poitiers J. Boyer and G. Bouchet 1479 Toulouse — 1479 Caen Ferrandus and Quijone 1480 Vienne Pierre Schenck 1481 Promentour Loys Guerbin 1482 Troyes Guillaume le Rouge 1483 Chambery Antonius Neyret 1484 Bréand-Loudéhac R. Foucquet 1484 Rennes Pierre Belleesculée 1484 Abbeville Dupré and Gerard 1486 Rouen Guillaume le Talleur 1487 Besançon — 1487 Hagenau Henry Grau 1489 Dol Peter Metlinger 1490 Grenoble — 1490 Orleans Matthieu Vivian 1490 Dijon Peter Metlinger 1491 Angoulême — 1491 Cluny Michael Wenssler 1493 Nantes Etienne Larcher 1493 Limoges John Berton 1495 Provins G. Tavernier 1496 Tours Matthieu Lateron 1496 Avignon Nicol Lepe 1497 Treguier — 1499 Guienne — 1500 Perpignan J. Rosembach 1500

PARIS. About the close of the year 1469, Ulrich Gering, Michael Friburger and Martin Crantz began to print at Paris. To please the classic tastes of the doctors of the university who had invited them, their first book appeared in types of Roman form. They were not skillful printers, for Chevillier says that letters half formed and half printed are noticeable [p506] in their earlier works, but they were industrious publishers. Like Jenson, they found it expedient to cut and cast types of the Round Gothic fashion, for the Roman character was most admired by scholars. In 1477, Crantz and Friburger abandoned printing, but Gering continued to print until his death in 1510. He willed a large property to the university.